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Health of healthcare industry in India Emperor Ashok was probably the first king in world history, who tried to give health care to all citizens. Despite such headway, India has not achieved too much in terms of providing good quality healthcare for its nationals. Although by developing irrigation channels, India has been successful in eradicating famines but malnutrition, high infant mortality rate and diseases like Malaria & Tuberculosis are still haunting the nation. Today, India has 16% of the world’s population, 18% of the world’s mortality and 20% of the world’s morbidity but our public expenditure on health is still 1% of GDP- amongst the lowest in the world. With government spending less than 1% of GDP on healthcare, basic healthcare facilities and health insurance are a distant dream for majority of the population. More than 80% of the healthcare expenditure goes out from the pocket of patients, and according to World Bank statistics of 2002, 40% of the hospitalized patients have to take a loan or sell of asset, pushing 2.2% of population below poverty line every year. One instance of hospitalization is estimated to cost around 58% of annual per capita expenditure, making a strong case for providing affordable healthcare in India. The high quality or super specialty healthcare is out of reach of more than 90% of the patients. Despite distressing facts such as India being only one of the four countries worldwide yet to eradicate polio, healthcare in India is growing rapidly ( although the distribution is a bit lop sided, with urban population area getting more than 70% of this growth). Healthcare in India is one of the biggest sectors in terms of revenue and people employed. An ever increasing population is putting strain on it, stretching it and giving a reason to investors to invest in healthcare. Propelled by large investments from corporate, FDI and Govt. also, healthcare is poised to grow at a fast pace for next 15-20 years. Nearly 28% of the population in India lives in cities and this is projected to go up to 41% by 2020, which will subsequently result in increase in demand for better quality healthcare as well as increase in number of patients suffering from lifestyle diseases.
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